Much like the rest of the world, Nine Feet Tall was struck with Olympic fever over the past month, and have spent the past two weeks being captivated by the Paralympics. The supremely talented athletes understandably take most of the attention with their inspirational performances, rendering us speechless and in awe. Although we might not be able to achieve these miraculous sporting feats, we are able to draw comparisons with many other aspects of the Olympics; more specifically aspects of programme and project management.
One of the most iconic features of any Olympic Games is the Olympic flame. It is a vital symbol of the Games, representing peace, unity and friendship. Travelling approximately 20,000 kilometres from the birthplace of the Olympics and passing between 12,000 torch bearers in just under four months, it was inevitable that the Olympic torch would experience a considerable amount of hurdles along its journey. Consequently, a rigorous Risk Management process would have been undertaken to ensure the safe arrival of the torch in the host city, Rio de Janeiro. If Nine Feet Tall would have been undertaking the Risk Management process, we would have adopted the following 6 step process:
Identifying Risks
The first stage in the process is the identification of risks. This is typically facilitated in a risk workshop with a variety of individuals present to provide different perspectives and expertise, these can include subject matter experts (SMEs), members of the project team, key stakeholders…
When identifying risks, it is useful to have a standard way of describing risks. One of the key risks in this scenario would most definitely have been, “If it rains there is a risk that the Olympic flame is extinguished”. Having this standard description helps to prevent risk descriptions running away from you and becoming too vague.
Assess Risks
Once the risks have been identified the next step is to assess the probability and impact on the objectives of the project, if the risk was to occur.
Taking the risk identified in the first stage, travelling continuously for four months there is an extremely high likelihood that the torch would encounter some adverse weather conditions at some point along its marathon journey, resulting in the flame being extinguished. Considering the iconic nature of the Olympic flame and its importance to the Games, the reputational impact of the Olympic flame being extinguished would be severe.
Identify Responses
After the assessment phase, it is necessary to identify what responses are available to the project team. Nine Feet Tall have 5 categories of response:
- Prevent – Terminate the risk by doing different things
- Reduce – Treat and take action to control
- Accept -Tolerate since there is nothing which can be done at reasonable cost to mitigate
- Contingent – Actions planned and organised when risk happens
- Transfer – Pass to 3rd party (e.g insurance)
Some of these may be inappropriate for the risk in question, but it is still a useful task to identify all the different options of response as sometimes the first or second choice responses may be unachievable. This can be due to the response being too costly or there being too little time to put it into action, however circumstances can sometimes change and a previously disregarded response can become viable all of a sudden.
Select Response
A response must then be selected from the ones identified in the previous stage. The response selected should be reflective of the probability and impact of the risk occurring. For example, choosing to accept a risk, which has a very high probability and very high impact, would be unacceptable and would more than likely cause the project to fail. For the torch relay organisers, the impact of the Olympic flame being extinguished is catastrophic and therefore the only appropriate action would be to prevent the risk from occurring. For any major event, such as the Olympics, the vast resources available usually means that any response can be selected.
Plan & Resource
Once identified, the response must then be planned out and resourced. For small projects with small scale risks this can be a really quick and easy task, with little planning and few resources needed. However, a risk involved with a project such as the Olympic torch relay requires unbelievable amounts of planning, with huge amounts of money expended and resources utilised.
The actual plan to prevent the Olympic flame from being extinguished made use of eight back-up lanterns, which were transported alongside the relay at all times. As a matter of fact, the relay torch often went out along its journey and it was from one of these eight back-up lanterns that the torch was re-lit. It may be seen as bending the rules, but this plan ensured that the “Olympic flame” was never extinguished along its journey from Olympia to Rio.
Monitor & Report
After implementing the plan, the last (and often the most under-appreciated and neglected) step is to monitor and report on the risk. This is the role of the project manager on most projects, unless there is a designated risk manager or the task is delegated to another member of the project team. We would always recommend for all risks to be recorded in a dedicated risk log. This way it is easier to monitor the status of risks, e.g. Open, Closed, In Process, Escalated or Requesting Closure, and report on the progress to the key stakeholders within the business.
With no embarrassing news stories surfacing of the Olympic flame being extinguished during its journey from Olympia to Rio, we can only imagine that the project team regularly maintained and monitored a robust risk log and successfully completed the last leg of the risk management process.
